Castro 1
Jessica Castro
Professor Kazarian
Mosaic II
22 November 2013
Paper 2 - Thoreau on Work, Debt, and Slavery For this paper, I chose to focus on subject 7 of the syllabus which was Thoreau on Work, Debt, and Slavery. The first chapter of Walden, Thoreau states that his neighbors seem to work their lives away and are deeply in debt. Readers have come to read Thoreau’s book on stolen or borrowed time, robbing their employers of time. Readers are also imposing slavery upon themselves. These three claims relate to one another in the mode of economy. In order to acquire the necessities of life, man must work to make a living. In order to make a living, man must have money to acquire tools in order to make that living. If man does not have the means in which to acquire tools, he himself becomes the tool of production via labor power. Men who constantly work in order to produce these necessities daily are slaves to themselves and to those who employ them. One without the other leaves man without life’s necessities; thus, leading to his demise. In Walden, Thoreau claims: . . . my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, and cattle . . . Better if they had been born in the open pasture . . . might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in (8).
Castro 2 In this passage, Thoreau clearly provides an example of how man works his life away. The inherited land given to the new “serf of the soil” must be constantly worked and tilled to produce crops for consumption and for sale. Thoreau argues that man eats his “sixty acres”, but “man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt (8).” Men labor in vain for only by necessity is he employed. Men pour their sweat, blood, and tears into working the land so much, they may as well be ploughed into the dirt as compost. Thoreau points out that the laboring man has no time for leisure or to maintain relations with others because his labor would depreciate as a result. “He has no time to be anything but a machine (9).” Some men are so poor, that they are reduced to working for the capitalist; thus “robbing their creditors” of the time it takes to read Thoreau’s book (10). The man who works for his creditor is probably going to work for him for life in order to acquire the necessities of life. This endless cycle only furthers slavery conditions. Laborers work long days to produce for the creditor; furthermore, laborers have no claim to the products they are responsible for producing. Thoreau believes that man honestly thinks there are no other choices for him left, and so he is reduced to this mode of living. Thoreau insists “What a man thinks of himself . . . indicates his fate (10-11).” In Walden, Thoreau also contrasts the difference between gross necessaries of life and the comforts of life. Both are responsible for perpetuating self-imposed slavery, one more so than the other. The gross necessities are described by Thoreau as something attainable only by immersing oneself in the life of the frontier. Only then can man absolutely understand what is absolutely necessary for life and what is not. Food, water and shelter are the only things necessary to sustain man.
Castro 3
After man has acquired these necessities of life can he really “entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success (14).” Man will naturally want to acquire more in order to be more comfortable. For example, Thoreau describes how man with his night clothes will be “robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this shelter within a shelter” as animals do with preparing their burrows (15). Most of the comforts of life are hindrances that take more effort to upkeep than the meager needs of the poor. Thoreau argues that the nature of the obligations his neighbors and readers felt under labor was directly correlated to the acquisition and pursuit of property.
Thoreau makes this clear when he expresses his sympathy for the young men who have inherited farms and have become enslaved machines by the obligations of property. Thoreau arrived at Walden seeking to escape the same plight those young men were experiencing. I agree with Thoreau and his views of self-imposed slavery. However, I believe that not knowing that you’ve submitted to this self-imposed slavery is worse. I believe Thoreau overlooked this point in his book. Thoreau thinks men have “deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they prefer it to any other (11).
A man who knows he’s a victim can either decide to turn the tide against it, or submit to it and hope things will eventually get better. However, the man who is ignorant to his submission is forever locked into a system he can never and will never know how to be free from. He is in fact causing his own suffering through his ignorance, but he knows not of it. Thoreau does touch base a little on the fact that a man’s capacities have never been measured, but Thoreau has never provided a distinctive basis in which man could be proven to rise above his given set of circumstances.
Castro 4 It is basically a guessing game whether or not man could free himself of his obligations to labor for proprietary gains. I believe man could do this, but our society is so far advanced that agrarian culture is lost to all but a few groups of people. Few men in society have actually gone “off the grid” so to speak. Even the Amish have made advancements than those of earlier generations. Society must evolve and move forward. Those who stay stagnate in their quest to avoid the capitalist institutions of labor and production eventually loses. The American dream was built on Lockean ideals of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property. I doubt any one could ever change this in our lifetime.

Castro 5
Works Cited
Thoreau, Henry David. "Walden and Civil Disobedience." Thoreau, Henry David. Economy. New York: Barnes and Nobles Classics, 2005. 3-65. Print.